Paralympics in Cortina: Anna-Lena Forster with first gold for Germany

Flag bearer Anna-Lena Forster got off to a golden start at the Paralympic Winter Games in Italy. The monoskier won the downhill of the sitting start class in Cortina d’Ampezzo on the first day of competitions and gave Team D a perfect start.

Forster prevailed on the slope at the Tofane Alpine Skiing Center, which was already slightly battered due to the thaw, in 1:25.79 minutes, just five hundredths of a second ahead of her Spanish World Cup competitor Audrey Pascual Seco. The Chinese Sitong Liu (+5.48 seconds) completed the podium.

World champion and co-favorite Barbara van Bergen was the first to fall and landed in the safety net, but was then able to drive slowly to the finish area. Momoka Muraoka, downhill champion at the 2022 Games in Beijing, decided not to start; The Japanese woman had only recently returned to racing after breaking her collarbone.

For the 30-year-old Forster, who comes from Radolfzell on Lake Constance, it is the first gold medal in the downhill; she won silver in Beijing. In total, she has already triumphed five times at the Winter Games, including silver and bronze medals, her medal tally now stands at ten.

Forster is still two Paralympics victories missing to catch up with the former monoski dominator Anna Schaffelhuber. In northern Italy, Forster is still competing for the team of the German Disabled Sports Association (DBS) in the Super-G, the Super-Combined, the giant slalom and in her flagship discipline, the slalom.

The other German alpine athletes decided not to participate in the start of the decisions in Cortina.